My Lasik Journey: red and green flowers in the dark

Hi all. It seems ironic that I came back to Singapore to get my Lasik operation done. After all, it was back here, all the way back in 1984 when I was a kid in primary two when I couldn't read the words on the blackboard and I realized that like my two older siblings, I needed glasses too. That was 31 years ago and even though I started wearing contact lenses in 1996 (which made a huge difference to my life in so many ways), I had always been tempted by corrective surgery to fix my myopia. Now clearly, I am not a doctor, I am not able to write about this topic from a medical perspective, but I would just like to share my journey with you as I have heard so many half-truths and completely untrue lies about Lasik over the years.

I had been using contact lenses since 1996.

I lead a very active lifestyle - I am a gymnast and I also do stuntwork, that means that I need to wear contact lenses whenever I do anything active. That meant relying very much on contact lenses and I did have a major eye infection in 1998 because I didn't keep my lenses clean enough.  If I may be ever so blunt, I felt like an ugly nerdy geek with glasses on and I became overly reliant on my lenses - if that makes me shallow, then I'm totally guilty as charged. So why did I need to do Lasik then since contact lenses had been serving me reasonably well all these years?

Well, I started this process for a bizarre reason: I was getting my contact lenses in London when one of the sales assistants was rude with me and I was like, "how dare you, I demand to speak to your manager at once." So out came the manager and he spoke to me very nicely about the whole situation. He got me a cup of tea and I calmed down - he then pitched me the concept of Lasik and he must have been so convincing that I decided there and then that it was a good idea to get it done. I then did some research and found that doing it in Singapore would cost about £1700 to £2000 whilst the quotes I received in the UK ranged from £3000 to £5000 (currently £1 = about S$2.20). The figure would vary depending on what kind of Lasik treatment you required and time you did it, but it was going to be a lot cheaper in Singapore than in the UK.

At Dr Lee's eye clinic at Gleneagles Hospital

I was told to go to somewhere like Malaysia or Thailand if I really wanted it done on the cheap - but I thought, no, these are my eyes - yes I want to save money if I can but I really don't want to compromise on safety and get it done in some backstreet clinic in Phuket. My sister has had her Lasik done in Singapore eight years ago, so I went to the same doctor as she went to - Dr Lee Hung Ming at Gleneagles Hospital. The quote he offered me wasn't the cheapest in Singapore, but it was still a lot cheaper than any of the quotes I had obtained in London. Given that my sister highly recommended him, I decided to go with Dr Lee and planned my surgery during my visit to Singapore.

I was instructed not to wear any contact lenses for a week before my surgery and the first part of the process was simply a detailed eye test to see if my corneas are suitable for this kind of Lasik surgery - they were and I was booked in for Lasik surgery the following Wednesday. So here I was, back in the bedroom in Ang Mo Kio in my parents' house where I grew up, the night before my surgery. I always remember how I would take off my glasses just before I went to bed and I would look at the switches on my air-con unit on the wall. Without my glasses, my eyes just couldn't focus and the little red and green lights on the air-con unit (as well as on my computer, my phone charger etc) would blur into little green and red flowers, with streaks of light bleeding out of the centre. I barely slept the night before my surgery - I was scared, nervous. I should have had a lot more faith in medical science but I just spent most of the night staring at those green and red flowers in the dark.

One of the last photos I took with my glasses on

When my alarm went off at 7 am, I crawled out of bed in a daze and my parents drove me to the hospital. I guess I was just too tired to feel nervous at that stage, given how I must have had like two or three hours of sleep only. The optician gave me another round of eye tests, there were more forms to be filled and then the nurse put me in a surgical gown, cleaned my face and wrapped up my hair. She then put a local aesthetic in my eyes and gave me a strong sleeping pill. She then said, "please take off your glasses for the last time, I will give them back to you after the operation - but you won't be needing them anymore." I paused for a moment - not that I was attached to my glasses, but I thought, woah, this is it. There's no turning back now. I was then told to wait in this dark room where I was put on a bed with a pillow and blanket - the sleeping pill took effect and I became drowsy quite soon. I remember looking at the smoke detector on the ceiling which had a small red light - that too had turned into a red flower in the dark.  I don't know how long I was in that room for I had fallen asleep, by the time the nurse came to wake me up to go for the operation, I was so drowsy I could barely stand up and she had to help me every step of the way to the next room.

By then, I was already in such a daze I was barely aware of what was going on. My head was put against some kind of headrest to keep it steady and stop it from rolling to the side. The lights in the operation theatre were very bright and my first instinct was to close my eyes. The doctor then put the eye lids of one of my eyes in a vice to clamp them open for the first part of the Lasik procedure, which was to create the Lasik flap. I was aware of the awkward feeling of the vice on my eye lids, but I barely registered the cutting of the flap. The procedure was then repeated on my other eye and I thought, am I done now? I then saw Dr Lee move this sharp ended instrument towards my eyes to lift the flap for the second part of the procedure, when the laser worked its magic on my cornea to restore perfect vision. There wasn't some high-tech sound effect, just this beeping sound and I could smell something burning. Dr Lee then repeated the same procedure on the other eye and before I knew it, he said something to me and I couldn't quite register what he said, but it was something along the lines of we are done now Alex, that is it - congratulations, you can say goodbye to your glasses forever now. I think I tried to say thank you to Dr Lee but my words were so very slurred I don't think I even recognized what I said.

With Dr Lee after the operation

As I stumbled off the surgery table, the room was still spinning because of the sedation and the nurse told me gently, "just close your eyes, don't try to focus". She helped me back to the resting room where I just lay down for a long time. The sedation (and the adrenaline) made me feel nauseous and uncomfortable but ironically, my eyes felt fine as the anaesthetic had not worn off yet. I remember opening my eyes to look at the smoke detector and the red light on it was still a flower, but a much smaller one. Again, I had no idea how long I was in that room - I was half asleep and so drugged up. when the nurse came in to give me eye drops, I could barely open my eyes long enough for her to administer those eye drops. She gave me some instructions but her words just washed over me. "Come with me, Dr Lee will examine your eyes now," she said.

As I followed her into Dr Lee's brightly lit office, my eyes struggled to focus for a while but I was surprised to see how much my vision had improved, so shortly after the surgery. Dr Lee then examined my eyes and gave me the all clear to go home. I then asked if I could take a photo with him to mark the occasion and he gladly obliged. I was then instructed to go home and rest my eyes for the rest of the day. Even on the car journey home, without my glasses, I was able to read the road signs from quite a distance and even I was surprised, as i didn't expect my eyes to adjust that quickly. I did however, vomited the moment I got home as the mixture of the sedation and the car journey with imperfect vision had left me with a case of travel sickness. I then stumbled to my room, turned on the air-con, collapsed into bed and slept for about five hours as the sleeping pill knocked me out. Oh I had such vibrant dreams in those five hours of very deep sleep.

Realizing I no longer needed my glasses - wow.

I awoke sometime in the afternoon and tried to administer my eye drops, but as I was still feeling drowsy, much of it landed on either my cheeks or my forehead. I sat up in bed and rested for about 10 minutes before I could muster the strength to leave my bedroom to go to the toilet. All this while, it was only the drowsiness from the sedation that bothered me - my eyes felt perfectly fine and it was amazing just how clear I could see already, barely 6 hours after the surgery. My vision was not supposed to return to normal so quickly after the surgery, but as I looked out of the window, I could see the details on the building across the road with ease and read the number plates on the cars parked far away. I then had a cup of coffee and some juice as the sedation eventually wore off towards the late afternoon and I felt surprisingly well. I know most medical experts would recommend complete rest post-operation, but I felt so restless after dinner that I went out for a walk - even my night vision was excellent. It was ironic that the last time I walked down that same road without glasses, it was 1984 and after 31 years, I have had perfect vision restored. Wow. It felt unreal.

I faithfully followed the instructions with the eye drops and the eye masks over the next two days but by day 2, my eyes felt perfectly normal. I returned to the eye clinic the next day for a check up and was told that perfect vision had been restored and to continue the medication as prescribed. I was to avoid exercise for a week, wear sunglasses when outdoors and avoid rubbing my eyes but otherwise, I was another success story for Dr Lee. In fact, when I caught up with my sister - there were two notable differences in our experiences. Firstly, I was heavily sedated so I was just way too drowsy to feel any real fear during the actual operation - my sister only had a local anaesthetic but was not sedated, so whilst she felt no pain, she experienced a lot of anxiety. Secondly, she experienced a lot of tearing after the operation - she said it was like cutting onions, it was an involuntary response whereas I didn't experience that at all, if anything, my eyes sometimes felt a little dry only after I woke up but it was nothing the eye drops couldn't take care of. In the day, I didn't experience any dryness in the eyes at all. And finally, my recovery was a lot quicker than hers - she experienced some haziness in her vision after the operation for up to 6 hours, whereas that period of haziness for me was well under an hour. My recovery has been amazing.

The eye mask tapped to my face before I slept at night

As I am writing this, it is the morning of day 3 and my eyes feel perfectly fine - the only discomfort throughout the entire process arose from the sedation and after hearing how my sister experienced fear and panic whilst not being heavily sedated during her procedure, it was a small price to pay for a few hours. And yes, I am wondering why I have not done this years ago given the freedom I now feel - it is not a question of not having to use contact lenses or glasses anymore or the money I will save in the long run, it is just being free of the hassle of being dependent on them to see clearly. So, now, let me deal with some of the misinformation I had been fed before I had my operation.  I know these people mean well but they should really have just told me, "consult a doctor for professional advice" rather than pass this misinformation to me.

"What if the doctor makes a mistake and blinds you? Things can go wrong with all medical procedures!"

Oh by that token, then nobody should ever go for any operation at the hospital for there is always an element of human error on the part of doctors. We may as well just close down all the hospitals now by that logic. And if you are going down that route, then you should never take a bus or a taxi again as the driver could kill you if they make a mistake like drive off a bridge or something stupid like that. The fact is Lasik has become a very standard operation and there is really little that can go wrong. In this modern age, we often have to trust a professional to take care of us and a reputable hospital like any of the ones in Singapore will have very high standards for their practices - of course, I can't say the same if you went to some backstreet clinic in Thailand. Good hospitals have strict rules and procedures that their surgeons have to adhere to in order to make sure that accidents do not happen.

"You have a very active lifestyle, what about Lasik flap dislocation - that is a danger, right?"

The Lasik flap dislocation is a real risk that can happen but only when you have direct trauma to the eyeball - ie. when an object hits you very hard square in the eye and quite frankly, if you are really unlucky enough for that to happen, then you'll be lucky not to be blinded! When was the last time you got hit in the eye(s) very hard? We do instinctively protect our eyes because they are precious to us and in a worst case scenario, a Lasik flap dislocation can be fixed by a Lasik doctor. Dr Lee told me of two cases: one was a woman who got scratched by her cat on her eye and the other was a man who got hit very hard in the eye by a stick, in both cases, he was able to fix the Lasik flap. The fact is, most of us do not get hit in the eyes in our daily lives and you can't live your life worrying about things like that.

"It won't last forever, your eyes will regress at some stage."

That is true but then again, by that token, you may as well say, oh there's no point going to the dentist, as the dentist may patch up your teeth but they may decay again in the future. How long your perfect vision may last will depend on each individual's eyes, but it is not uncommon for eyes to regress a bit after around ten years as one gets older, but regression is usually very slight - you will not end up as shortsighted as you were before. Furthermore, longsightedness will set in at some stage in our 40s, so you some shortsightedness will compensate for that and enable you to read - it is nature's way offering a compromise. Let's be realistic in our expectations, please.

"Sounds like a good idea, but the thought of eye surgery freaks me out. Doctors sticking things in my eyes, I am so scared, I would rather live with glasses than have a painful surgery."

The local anaesthetic meant that I felt no pain during the surgery and I was so sedated that I was barely conscious throughout the procedure, so I felt neither pain nor fear throughout the surgery. I experienced some discomfort as I was groggy and drowsy for some hours during and after the surgery, but that wasn't too bad and it passed after six hours.

Going for Froyo 24 hours after the operation.

"Lasik won't fix longsightedness."

That is true, but you will then only need reading glasses when you need to read things at close range but you can still walk down the street without glasses, feeling totally at ease.

Oh and as I lay in my bed last night, I looked back towards the air-con unit: the red and green flowers were gone. Instead I could see everything very clearly, I do not miss those red and green flowers in the dark. I know that Lasik is a huge topic and I can't possibly cover everything, I am not a doctor and can only talk about my own experience. Many thanks for reading.

With my sister in Singapore - I've fixed my eyes, now should I fix my baldness?